Aldus Manutius

Aldus Manutius (1450-1515), Italian printer and scholar, born in Velletri. In 1490, with the financial aid of the prince of Carpi, Manutius set up a printing establishment in Venice for the purpose of publishing editions of Greek and Latin classics in small volumes known as octavos at a low cost. His publications, known as the Aldine Editions, of works by ancient Greek writers such as the dramatist Euripides, the essayist Plutarch, and the philosophers Aristotle and Plato, were distinguished by typographical beauty and accuracy of scholarship; he employed noted classical scholars as editors, compositors, and proofreaders. Manutius was the first printer to use small capitals and italics. In 1500 he founded at Venice the academy of Greek scholars known as the New Academy; among its members were the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus and the English humanist Thomas Linacre.